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Most crashes, while visually dynamic and appealing to the “what’s going to happen next” NASCAR-loving culture, in reality suck to watch when you realize that it’s someone’s father or brother or husband behind the wheel. This particular Top Doorslammer wreck from Sydney Dragway definitely registers a big fat “ouch” on the Richter scale of wrecks.
Sydney Dragway Vice Chairman and racer Jeff Wilson was making his first pass of the event, and didn’t make it 300 feet down the track before all hell broke loose. The car is out of the groove almost from the hit, and it continues to move right out into the marbles – not a good place for a supercharged doorslammer to be.
Wilson corrects, the car starts to come back, whipsaws up onto two wheels, and from there it’s all downhill – literally. The car goes across the track on two wheels and absolutely crushes the nose into one wall, the throttle sticks, the engine goes wide open and the car crosses back to the other side of the track to the near wall, and finally to rest past the finish line, with the body of the car wrecked from all angles.
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The report says that Wilson was knocked out from the impact but was coherent when the safety personnel arrived, and was subsequently discharged from the hospital the same day. He easily survived a harsh impact, but his discharge from the hospital apparently none the worse for wear becomes a more ringing endorsement of today’s safety equipment and required gear for drivers racing at this performance level.
There’s an incredible sequence of photos at this link [3] from Australia’s Dragnews, so make sure you head on over and check them out.
Thanks to Fast Performance Videos [4] for the coverage. We’re certainly glad to hear that Wilson is safe and sound.